Dronfield Sports Centre goes carbon neutral
It'll be one of the first to reduce its carbon emissions by 100%
£1.33m funding will towards the project which will see old gas-powered boilers replaced with air source heat pumps, and the installation of solar panels helping offset 25% of the centres' energy.
The Council has secured funding from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) as part of its Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.
Cavity wall insulation has also been installed around the building, as has new energy efficient LED lighting. This further investment will result in a 100% decrease in carbon emissions as the centre will become carbon neutral upon completion of the works.
Leader Councillor Alex Dale told us:
"We see ourselves as ambitious and we're pushing hard with a positive carbon reduction policy.
"Leisure centres are typically very energy hungry buildings with costly swimming pools to heat generating high energy bills, but these are the sort of places we need to start with.
"We expect to be saving the equivalent of heating 126 family homes in the district each year by putting in these works.
"For it to be a building that so many people in the area use and enjoy, which hopefully is on its way to being the first and only entirely carbon neutral facility of its type in the country, is fantastic and a great statement for North East Derbyshire."
Work is set to start at the centre in the summer of 2022 and be completed by winter 2022.